A Horse, 8x10 custom drawing, with progress photo and a brief lesson in Pencils.
I was commissioned to draw a lovely horse, named Three Martinis Later, aka RubyJean by e sa collector on Instagram. Her name is Mimi,
and she sent me photo reference to work from of RubyJean, below is the first draught:
It has come to my attention, since someone walked into the studio the other day saying he did drawings, that a lot of people don't understand the basics of drawing materials, so briefly, what you see above was done with an hb pencil, a 2b pencil and a Palomino Blackwing which is probably the equivalent of a 6b or so. Pencils for art and drafting come in a variety of harness, ranging from h pencils, which are hard, increasingly hard and light the higher the number, and b pencils which are increasingly soft and darker the higher the number. In the middle is hb, which is the equivalent of a number 2 pencil which is most common and what you likely used in school. As I work I use softer, and therefore darker pencils, giving me a much wider range of values than just an hb is capable of.
Like this:
Three Martinis Later, aka RubyJean 8 x 10 drawing
As you can see in the finished piece, there are values from light to dark, making the image look as her owner said, "like she could jump
off of the page" . This is the goal with realism, be it a drawing or painting. If you have an image you believe might make a good drawing or painting please do send it to me, let's talk.
